Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Ching-In Chen's "Gruel, Tea: a riddle" {a fierce poem}

Agnes Martin's hand

Very happy to post Ching-In Chen's "Gruel, Tea: a riddle." I met her a few months ago. Was so impressed. Yet I'm messing up her poem. The 2 stanzas should be parallel or do I mean opposite each other. I tried. This is part of a larger piece.Gruel, Tea: a riddle

A room full of fathers birth
maggots which boil
into a sticky bag of
soup. Some sons
learned to suckle
too tightly, their
incandescent greed
dropping into the pot.
Others memorized
the recipe of how to
survive without

Will follow you for 1000
miles without breaking sweat,
desires neither to be fed or
clothed, fears neither guns nor
soldiers, can kiss the bruising
sun or coax a lullaby from the
dying mother.